As will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art, the USPS guarantees delivery for USPS Express Mail, and for USPS Global Express Mail, also sometimes referred to as USPS Express Mail International.
There are some reasons why automated USPS Postage Refunds are different from the way private carriers handle failures to deliver a parcel by a guaranteed delivery time and date. In particular, it will be understood by someone with ordinary skill in the art that currently, the United States Postal Service (“USPS”) postage represents a paid amount of postage. That is, currently, the USPS requires upfront payment for postage before accepting a parcel for mailing.
As compared to the USPS, a private carrier such as UPS®, bills a shipping user's account for its shipping services after the private carrier processes the package, to which a shipping label has already been attached, through its processing facilities. That is, a shipping user may print a UPS® shipping label and affix it to a package. When a UPS®-shipping user wants to print a UPS® label, the UPS®-shipping user will provide package weight and dimension information. UPS® will subsequently process the package, with a UPS® shipping label already attached, through its package processing facilities. Adjustments for any differences between the weight and/or dimensions provided by the UPS® shipping user and the actual measurements of the package will be made in a final amount charged to the account of the UPS® shipping user for shipping the package using UPS® shipping services.
Similar to UPS®, other private carriers, such as FEDEX® bill a shipping user's account for its shipping services after processing the package, to which a shipping label has already been attached, through the private carrier's processing facilities. That is, a shipping user may print a FEDEX® shipping label and affix it to a package. When a FEDEX®-shipping user wants to print a FEDEX® label, the FEDEX®-shipping user will provide package weight and dimension information. FEDEX® will subsequently process the package, with a shipping label already attached, through its package processing facilities. Adjustments for any differences between the weight and/or dimensions provided by the FEDEX® shipping user and the actual measurements of the package to be shipped will be made in a final amount charged to the account of the FEDEX® shipping user for shipping the package using FEDEX® shipping services.
Some private carriers will accept electronic challenges to the private carrier's guarantee for delivering particular parcels. That is, some private carriers will accept an electronic notification of an instance of a mailer's/customer's parcel not having been delivered by the private carrier parcel by the private carrier's guaranteed delivery date. When a private carrier agrees with a user's/mailer's delivery guarantee challenge, the private carrier will adjust the final amount billed to the account of the private carrier's user/mailing.
As compared to the above-described process that a private carrier may use for adjusting a final amount charged to a user's/mailer's account to reflect a failure by the private carrier to deliver a parcel by the carrier's delivery guarantee date, a mailer that uses the USPS, must currently complete a paper application, and provide evidence of payment of USPS postage, such as a receipt.
Currently, one way for a user/mailer to manage USPS mailing charges with respect to USPS delivery guarantees, is to periodically access the USPS website, enter the USPS Express Mail Label Number associated with a parcel, and request tracking information for the parcel. If the guarantee date for delivery for a parcel has passed, and there has been no delivery, or if the user is presented with a report of delivery after the guaranteed delivery date, the user could then print the report, go to the USPS Post Office and complete an application for a refund, attaching the receipt for payment of the Express Mail postage.
Another currently existing way that a user/mailer could manage USPS mailing charges with respect to USPS delivery guarantees, is to periodically access an Internet postage provider's website, enter the USPS Express Mail Label Number associated with a parcel that the user/mailer had used the Internet provider's website for purchasing the postage, and request tracking information for the parcel. If the guarantee date for delivery for a parcel has passed, and there has been no delivery, or if the user is presented with a report of delivery after the guaranteed delivery date, the user could then print the report, go to the USPS Post Office and complete an application for a refund, attaching the receipt for payment through the Internet postage provider's website of the Express Mail postage.
Alternatively, some Internet providers may facilitate a user accessing a history of postage printed by the user using the Internet providers website. When the user accesses the user's print history, if the user had used the Internet postage provider website to purchase Express Mail postage with an Express Mail label number, the Internet postage provider would, for example, display a hypertext link for the Express Mail postage that, if clicked by the user, would report tracking information for the parcel, or alternatively, would navigate the user's access to the USPS website, which could then provide the user with tracking information.
One of the problems with the above-described process for a user to identify parcels for which the USPS has failed to deliver the parcel by the delivery guarantee date is that the user must access a website and either enter a USPS Express Mail Label Number or find a print history entry for the USPS Express Mail Label Number and check to see if the tracking information will report that the parcel has been delivered or not.
While the above-described process would not present an overwhelming problem if there is only a single parcel involved, the above-described process may become unmanageable for a larger number of parcels. That is, for an enterprise that mails a plurality of USPS Express Mail parcels within a relatively short time, the process of periodically checking the actual delivery date against the guaranteed delivery date may require more time than anyone in the enterprise is willing to spend. Consequently, delivery guarantee failures may go undetected by the user/mailer.
Accordingly, some way is needed for automatically reporting USPS delivery guarantee failures so that the user/mailer can request a refund.
Further, a way is needed for automatically reporting USPS delivery guarantee failures to the USPS when the USPS agrees to receive such automatic reports, and for receiving refunds on behalf of the respective user for which the refund is being requested.